


End of War

by Ninian_Anais



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: F/M, Incest, Missionary Position, Sibling Incest, Twincest, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:08:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28448193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninian_Anais/pseuds/Ninian_Anais
Summary: After the war ends, Ephraim is kept up late at night with worries about becoming king and leading his country. His sister Eirika, also restless, visits him in his bedchamber.
Relationships: Eirika/Ephraim (Fire Emblem)
Kudos: 32





	End of War

Quiet reigned this night. No scouts reporting news, no smiths striking irons, no horses whinnying in their stables. Instead of a tent, Ephraim slept in his own bedchamber—once his father's—high up in Castle Renais.

The war was ended.

But despite the silence, or perhaps because of it, Ephraim could not sleep. He sat shirtless on the corner of the vast bed, hunched with his elbows on his knees, contemplating the swath of woodland beyond his window, and the mountains, and the darkened villages lit by only a few stray fires. The whole country seemed to stretch beyond that window. Renais.

And he was king now.

In a quiet like this, how could he hope to sleep? No battle the next day, or not any battle he knew how to fight. No matter the foe, no matter the odds, he remained certain in his own ability, the strength of his arm, the tenacity of his will. If he ever lost sleep, it was due to the thrill of testing his limits, of seeing how far he could push himself—anticipation. Not dread. Not like this.

Because the war was ended, and he was king now. Because instead of armies and enemy generals, he had to contend with famine and reconstruction. Seth gave him the whole litany, an endless string of needs and demands from the people, things they would perish without, or else revolt. Merely hearing the list tired him and he was afraid none of the specifics had lodged in his memory, such an overwhelming tide of things he had to do—and had to do quickly, and do well—that it washed over his mind like a river.

How would he ever do it? How could he be king? He never wanted to. It wasn't what he was built to do, as a man. Fighting, roaming—those were his strengths. A castle was no place for him. How then—

A knock upon his door roused him from this circuitous infinity of thought. Ephraim might have been glad of the distraction, except he knew it must come from Seth, here to report some new urgent matter to which as king only he could attend, and Ephraim would yell at him to wait until morning, and Seth would embark on some pointed, condescending, and yet utterly correct lecture about the duty of the king to his nation and so on and so on—but if it were to happen that way, it might as well happen quickly, so Ephraim said, "Come in."

But when the door opened, it wasn't Seth standing there. "Ah! I'm sorry, I didn't realize—"

"No, it's fine," said Ephraim. "You've seen me without a shirt plenty of times before. We used to bathe together, after all, a long time ago."

Ephraim's twin sister, Eirika, stepped into the room. Her bare feet made a tactile patter against the stone, a sound so soft that only the absolute silence of the night rendered it audible. Her pale yellow nightgown flowed down to her shins and hung loose around her body, swishing with each step.

"Close the door, you'll let a draught in," said Ephraim.

Eirika nodded and shut the door. "I do not plan to keep you up," she said, in that somewhat stiffly formal way of hers that Ephraim supposed he better start to replicate now that he was king, "but I noticed the light on in your room and wanted to check up on you... Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Time anyone with any sense ought to be asleep," said Ephraim. "And yet here we both are, wide awake."

A slight blush spread across Eirika's cheeks, or maybe that was a trick of the candlelight. "I simply felt the need for a drink of water..."

"Ah. So you mean you weren't going to raid the pantry for a midnight snack? Father used to be so cross with you for sneaking out like that nearly every night."

"What! I only snuck out once or twice in my life!"

"I don't remember it that way. Of course, you're skin and bones, so I don't blame you either."

"I am NOT 'skin and bones'!" Now the blush could no longer be mistaken for a trick of the light. Eirika wrapped her arms around her shoulders defensively and furrowed her brow at him.

Ephraim laughed, which only caused Eirika to grow huffier, but then his laugh suddenly subsided into a sigh. "Well, there's no need for you to keep standing. Take a seat, the bed's clearly large enough."

"I only came to check whether you were alright. I can see now that you are clearly the same as you always are, so..."

But Ephraim shook his said. "Come on. Enjoy the view. We haven't had much chance to talk, just the two of us. Let's enjoy the chance, before it's all formalities and titles tomorrow."

Eirika stared at him a moment in the same posture, but then her arms slid down to her sides and she pattered across the rug, taking up the excess folds of her gown in hand before carefully sitting next to Ephraim on the side of the bed.

They sat in silence for some time. Ephraim stared out the window at Renais and Eirika stared at Ephraim.

"It worries you, does it not, brother?"

"Worries me? No. It terrifies me."

"I saw your face after Seth got through speaking with you," said Eirika. "I have never seen you so pale, not even that time when we were little and you fell sick with the ague."

That memory, deeply buried, resurfaced in a moment. "How old was I then? Five or six? And every nurse in the entire castle kept stuffing medicine down my throat."

"At one point you shouted, 'I would rather die than drink another spoonful of that medicine!' And I started to cry, because I really thought you meant it."

"That's right. You cried so loud and so long that I finally decided to drink it rather than listen to you boohoo."

"Was—was that really—That was not really the reason!"

Ephraim grinned. "I thought you were going to shrivel up like a raisin."

"I was worried about you!"

"You always are, dear sister."

They fell silent again, this time both looking at one another. Eirika... she had changed so much since the war started, and yet in some ways not changed at all from that silly sister he used to tease all the time. For starters, she wasn't nearly so flat as a board any more (in fact, beneath that thin nightgown her form was quite something else). But even beyond that, something in her eyes had changed. She had fought, and killed, as well as any soldier, in fact better than many of them. Men, beasts—even friends.

"You weren't awake because you needed a drink of water, are you, sister?"

Eirika said nothing. She turned away and faced the window and Ephraim knew immediately he was correct.

"It's Lyon, isn't it," said Ephraim.

All Eirika could do was nod. For a moment, Ephraim believed she would cry. She had remained strong the entire time, the entire war—had never once broken down. Now that the war was ended, she was free to sob it all out, just like that little girl had when she was so afraid her brother would die of illness. In this quiet place, away from everyone, she could allow herself that luxury.

But she didn't cry, and Ephraim understood that there was more changed about his twin sister than he first realized.

"Yes," she said, finally, with a surprising stalwart clarity in her voice. "I cannot stop thinking about him. He's really gone, isn't he, brother? Gone and... never coming back."

"It's not your fault, Eirika," said Ephraim. "Or anyone's fault except that evil we killed there in the Black Temple. Lyon had been gone a long time before that day. What we did was avenge him. Nothing more."

Another long interval of silence. Ephraim's own words, could even he believe them? At times, that puppet calling itself Lyon had seemed so lifelike, with nuances no brutish evil god could hope to imitate, and yet... and yet... And yet it wasn't Lyon that Ephraim found himself thinking about. He watched his sister, really watched her for the first time since the war began. She was different now, that was right. Stronger. And yet that strength hadn't hardened her, the way it went with ragged old soldiers and mercenaries who had seen their fair share of the world's torments. Her compassion, her love had not diminished. As she stared out the window, the faint outline of her body visible within her gown, her eyes bright but sharp like diamonds, Ephraim found himself thinking:

She was beautiful, wasn't she?

If someone knew how to help him lead, it was her. He, who had abandoned his country in need to chase glory and face danger in the heart of the enemy, needed that compassion, that love, that she felt for all good things in the world. That selfless sense of purpose, all the elevated and lofty ideals Seth said a king ought to embody, those ideals were all wrapped up in her, but with the strength and will that belonged to a king as well. It ought to be her on the throne, not him. He had thought that so many times before, but now... looking at her...

His hand reached out, almost without his thinking, and stroked her face, the way he used to do when they were both children. His fingers caressed up and down her cheek, and he expected her to snip at him, call him out for his childish behavior, and move the conversation a new direction. But she did not. She turned her face toward him, and their eyes met.

Then they both leaned in, and kissed.

They had always shared—a certain connection. As though what one felt, the other could somehow sense. And in that moment, as their lips locked, Ephraim knew that all their worries and fears and regrets, about Renais, about Lyon, about the people they'd killed, all of those were nothing in the face of the connection between them. This kiss was a balm. And while his hand continued to stroke her cheek, his other hand fell upon her shoulder. It pulled down the sleeve of her nightgown, exposing her upper arm to him, and at that point she suddenly pulled away, leaving his lips with the hot warm sensation of her lingering breath.

"What's the matter?" he said. "I had just started to get the impression you actually liked your brother's affections."

"Ah... it's, well, I do..." Her hand fiddled with the sleeve, tugging it halfway back into its proper place. "Believe me, brother, that is not my objection. It is simply that..."

He waited for what it simply was, all the while the fire inside him only building, a desire for her that caused him to lean toward her, nearly to the point of comedy. But in that kiss had been abnegation of those weighty cares of his. His blood beat inside his veins, the same sort of thrill he felt in battle.

"...During the fighting," Eirika finally continued, "I received various wounds. Nothing so serious that our healers could not restore me, but... these wounds left marks upon my body..."

Ephraim pulled back to laugh. "That's it? Really? Dear sister, look at me!" He motioned to his chest. "I'm absolutely covered in scars, but I don't see you recoiling in disgust from the sight."

"Oh, it's different for a woman! You know that!"

"Scars are a mark of valor. Man or woman, they indicate bravery. Come on, you ought to let me see."

He reached for her, but she swatted his hand away. "Let you see? I ought to be concerned at how naturally my brother requests a lady remove her clothes in his presence!"

"Well, if Princess L'Arachel is to be believed, I'm a philandering cad—Got you!"

His next attempt turned out a pounce, one for which Eirika was either wholly unprepared or lacking desire to parry. He fell upon her the way he used to whenever he caught her at tag as children, and she loosed a squeal even more reminiscent of that past. His hands held her by the shoulders as she fell back onto the bed, and he held his head over hers, staring down at her, laughing as her squeal turned into a laugh of its own.

"You truly are a cad! My own brother," she said.

"I can't help myself. You're simply so much fun to play with."

He again pulled at her nightgown. The neck was so wide and loose that it was a simple matter to slip it down her shoulders, although she squirmed and bit her lip as a blush spread across her smiling cheeks.

"It wasn't simply a line, you know," he said.

"A line? What?"

"About seeing your scars. I am truly curious."

Their faces loomed close to one another, close enough to feel warm breath. Eirika's smile faded; solemnity replaced it.

"You flatter me, brother..."

The neck of her nightgown was now pulled down just to the apex of the swell of her breasts. Ephraim could see the form of her nipples poking through the fabric, as well as the beginning of a long crescent of discolored white tissue that spread along the side of her ribcage. Another, smaller scar mirrored its placement on the other side. The gentle lifting of her chest when she breathed caused the scars to stretch, and then contract.

"If I wanted an unblemished maiden," Ephraim said, "I'd follow Seth's insistent advice that I marry L'Arachel to cement an alliance between Renais and Rausten. Although maybe the real reason he suggests that is to remove a competitor for your affection."

"What! Seth? What are you implying—Ah!"

He took advantage of the weakening of her guard and tugged her nightgown down further. Her breasts bounced out, petite but shapely, and made no less beautiful by the scars that ran down her body. A new flush of embarrassment darkened Eirika's cheeks and she turned her face to the side, although she did not resist him as he continued to slide the now-bundled folds of her nightgown down the slender form of her waist.

"Oh... Ephraim..."

Ephraim placed one hand around the lower curve of her left breast and felt its shape and size as he brought his lips to her cheek and kissed her again. His body lowered, and pressed against hers, and she shivered at the feeling of the length of his penis pressed between her thighs, now making the crotch of his pants quite tight. Her legs slid to either side of him and folded, so that her knees rose up above his hips, and then she turned her face back to him and returned his kiss.

He wanted her. No, he needed her. And he sensed she needed him just as much. Folding her legs had caused the hem of her nightgown to slide along her thighs, exposing them boldly to him. He placed his hands upon them, felt them, every element of her body a soft and smoothly sloped curve, even though the feel of her skin at times became the unusual smoothness of scar tissue. Their kiss moved beyond mere affection, they twisted and shifted their mouths to better lock them together, their tongues touched, then became more familiar, and he tasted her saliva. His heart, and her heart, throbbed, and the blood coursed in his veins. He reached down and undid the button of his pants, and then tugged them down around his knees, and felt somehow shameful for exposing himself, he who had never been seen by a woman in this way since... well, since his shared childhood baths with the very woman he now held underneath him.

His chest pushed against her breasts as he sank his hips down between her thighs. Only a thin layer of her silken gown separated him from her, and this problem was soon rectified. She was wet. Liquid tingled against the skin of his shaft as he pressed against her. She trembled, and again broke their kiss, and said, "Nn—no—I don't know..."

"It's okay," he whispered into her ear, before he nibbled the lobe between his lips. "It's okay, Eirika..."

"It's so silly," she said. "I don't know what I'm saying. Here I've dreamed about this for years, and now I'm frightened..."

"Years? Then that's another thing we have in common..."

Without him consciously realizing it, he had started to move his hips up and down, rubbing the inside corridor of her thighs and also stroking his shaft against her crotch. It took everything in his power not to succumb to his basest instincts right then and there, but he told himself this was something he would not—could not—do if she was even the least bit uncomfortable about it. He understood the weight of what they each wanted from one another, the ramifications, his inner Seth sprouting unbidden in his mind to lecture him with the same tedium as usual, only this time on the numerous horrible outcomes of incest, how he ought to save himself for some foreign princess, et cetera et cetera, and he knew that Eirika herself, always more thoughtful, more prudent, more rational and proper than him, must be thinking these same thoughts tenfold.

"I've always admired you, brother..." she said. "And such strange and fanciful notions appeared in my head..."

"If you want to stop, we can stop."

She remained silent for a long time. A long time, with their bodies intermingled, their clothes tangled around them, their skin bared, and their saliva still on each other's lips. The absolute silence returned, the sound of shadows and candlelight and the sleeping nation behind them. The battle that raged inside her did not show on her face. Her expression was simple, melancholy, a melancholy that exemplified her beauty, so that Ephraim could only wonder at where this woman had come from, how different she was from the often sobbing sister he used to tease so much.

Her eyes turned toward him and she said, "I want—I want to do this. I want this..."

He nodded. His hips, which he had held painfully still the entire time, moved again. The tip of his penis pressed against her, and she was phenomenally wet, so wet that even at the barest touch he felt the lips begin to open for him. A whimper caught in her throat, but he still heard it, still felt the exhalation of hot air against his chin. He held her thighs steady as he sank, although he found the breath catching in his own throat at the feeling of his twin sister's internal world around him. Warm, and snug, and yet despite the snugness offering only a token resistance, so easy to enter, so easy to press deeply inside.

His sister slid her arms around his back and gripped him tight. The muffled murmurs that came from her lips only spurred his rushing blood. She was somehow both the small shivering girl from his boyhood and the beautiful young woman in his bed. His hips bucked, once, slightly, and she could not hold her cry inside her any more, it issued from her mouth like the purr of a kitten, quiet enough for only him to hear. His hips bucked again, and the purr became sharper, cut by her breath, and her whole body spasmed under him, and her limbs clenched and unclenched.

"Ephraim..."

He needed no further urging. He moved now, in a rhythmic motion, very slow, very slight, barely shifting himself inside her, but shifting nonetheless, a factor of centimeters, all the while his hands exploring the form of her body, her breasts, her scars, her collarbone, her shoulders, her neck and chin and cheek and lips. He wanted her, every part of her, his sister, and that want manifested in the gradual quickening of the motion of his hips, faster and faster by the most marginal degrees he could manage, although it took total exertion of will to do so. And as his motions became rhythmic, so became her cries, louder too, in time to the heavy breaths that left his own mouth, and who cared if anyone in this draughty old castle heard them, heard his sister crying out as she made love to her brother, was their love not the most natural thing in the world? Who else could know them better? They had known each other in the womb of their mother, and now Ephraim's thoughts tended toward the womb of the woman in whom he had now explored so deeply. It was like the undeniable call of battle inside him. He needed to fill her womb, to make a child inside her, maybe two children at once, just like them, and damn Seth, he would marry this woman, make her his queen, and rule this country with her together, and who would stop him? He was the king, and this was his country, and the laws were what he said they were.

"Oh—oh—Ephraim—Ephraim—"

The thought transferred between them without words, for his sister lifted her legs, and folded them around the small of his back, crossing them at the ankles, holding him ever tighter with all of her limbs. Holding him inside of her, making sure he would finish inside. Every sound and movement she made only increased his desire. His hands gripped her breasts, perhaps a bit harder than necessary, and a hint of pain entered her cries. No—not that. It was another thing changing the timbre of her sounds, something that accompanied the sudden tautness of her muscles, the sudden stillness of her body.

"Nngghh, ahhh—Ephraimmmhh...!"

She was frozen around him, clamped against his body, for a full second, a second second, a third, a fourth—and then her body twitched, and he noticed tears beading in the corners of her eyes as a long and loud cry pealed from her throat. He had made his sister come, and as she did he moved himself even faster, harder, pushing and pulling and pushing again as he sensed the most intimate minuscule motions of muscles nobody had ever felt contract except for her.

It was driving him insane. Actually insane. He felt it building inside himself. The blood, the fervor, everything, rocketed into madness by the flawless perfection of his sister the goddess, her strength and weakness mingled in one. All his thoughts tangled together, he could only think of her, and the building inside of him, and then through that knot cut a sudden and clear thought, a memory unwanted, hateful to this moment of extreme intimacy, this moment that ought to be between them, twin brother and twin sister, and them alone, the tiny world of two they created with one another.

It was a thought of Lyon. Why? Why would he think of him, and now? The thought was repugnant to him and his body lurched back against the web of his sister's limbs, only for her to pull him back, pull him as deeply into her as he could go. But the lingering thought remained, of the man who had lost himself to his emotions, who had corrupted into something vile and become, at last, an empty husk—Why think this? Wasn't this the exact kind of thought he sought to escape within his sister's embrace?

But the thought had latched its talons into his flesh, far deeper than his sister's fingernails against his back. He knew, at that moment, he could not see this to the end, that doing so—would not only destroy him—it would destroy the sister he loved too.

He pulled back. Eirika's arms and legs tightened again, trying to hold him inside her. And she had become much stronger since the war began, a strength that amazed him, but he was still strongest. With a final cry he pushed against her limbs and overpowered them, breaking free of her grasp and pulling out of her body at just the moment he could no longer hold himself in. His penis twitched, and then a long white line came out of it, splattering against the folds of his sister's nightgown, against her stomach, against her breasts. He groaned, as his penis twitched again, and a third time, each time covering her in another jet of his seed. Then the twitches became weaker, and the white arcs diminished, until he hung panting over her body with his penis going soft and dangling between his legs, only dripping into her navel now.

They both panted. Their chests heaved, their eyes gazed into each other.

"I'm..." Ephraim said, "I'm sorry. I couldn't—if I did—"

Eirika shook her head. "No... No, I don't know what came over me. You were right... to pull out."

The understanding between them remained. Not even a hint of reproach appeared on Eirika's face—only shame. A shame that perhaps mirrored that which appeared on Ephraim's own face, if only he had a glass nearby to see it.

He looked down at her body, and the last twinge of regret left him. "You know, you look quite good all messy like that."

"Oh, you really are a pig!"

They laughed together, and their breathing returned to normal. He wanted to stare at her body forever, or at least all night, but the rush of adrenaline started to leave him, and his rational mind was returning, along with all those miserable thoughts of being king and leading a ravaged nation. He leaned forward and kissed her to stave off those feelings just a moment longer. Just a moment longer, before they had to clean up and put their clothes on and sleep in their separate beds and chambers, before the morning came and the business of ruling this nation commenced, before he became a king and the war was over.

Just one final night. The stars twinkled in the sky.


End file.
